


Crossroads

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-29
Updated: 2010-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kel and Aly reach a crossroads in their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel, of sorts, to my fic "Holidays."

1.

“Aly, can we talk?”

Alianne Crow looked up from her reports. She nodded toward the other chair in her office.

Kel sat. “His Majesty called me into his office the other day. He's decided to make New Hope into a fief, and he's offered it to me.”

Aly studied the scroll in front of her. “You took your time about telling me.”

“What's that?”

“He spoke to you nine days ago.” She appeared to be reading, yet. “I wondered if you'd ever bother to mention it to me.”

Kel ran a nervous hand through her hair. “I had to think about it. Aly, there are conditions on that offer.”

“'An heir of your body,' wasn't that the phrase?”

The lady knight nodded, schooling her face to blandness. Aly had probably read the document before she had.

“I understand. I know how much you care about New Hope. If that's what you have to do, I won't object,” Aly said gravely. “We'll look for a suitable father – it's been done before. You know Rebeka of Merrimill? She even hired an advocate to make sure-”

“Aly,” Kel interrupted. “There's more to it than what's in the charter.” She looked down at her hands. “He said there are some noblemen I should meet. Bachelor noblemen. Younger sons, ex-military and about ready to settle down.”

Aly's head snapped up, eyes filling with horror. “He's trying to marry you off?”

“He talked for a long time about duty, and appearances, and Tortall's place among the surrounding nations. He made it clear that progressive is one thing, but behavior that could be seen as revolutionary is something else entirely. I think the phrase, 'an offense to the gods' was in there, too – not that he thinks it, exactly, but that it's been thrown at him, as insult to Tortall.”

“That sarden Marenite ambassador,” Aly muttered. “The one that caught us in the library – you remember?”

“I remember.” Kel closed her eyes. “So the king as good as said that this – you and I – has to stop.”

“No.” Aly stood up, fisting her hands on the desk and leaning forward, eyes focused on the terrible bland smoothness of Kel's face. “You're not going to do it, are you?”

“I have to.”

“By all the gods, why?”

Kel looked up, meeting Aly's hurt glare with one of her own. “Because otherwise he's going to offer it to Garvey instead.”

“That's extortion!”

“That's a monarchy.” Kel's voice was flat. “You know as well as I do. The king must treat with his councils and his peerage over the big things – but when it comes to the small ones, his word is law.”

“I know.” Aly leaned back, resting against the wall behind her desk. “So you'll marry the sarden bachelor. You can I can still be... you and I.”

Kel shook her head. “I won't deceive my people: if I've got any kind of credance at New Hope, it's because they know they can trust me. And I won't...” She stopped, swallowing hard before she continued. “I won't have children if they're going to see me being unfaithful to their father.”

“I hate your sense of honor,” Aly snapped. “Your king's asking for this. 'Your people' need that. The children you haven't even had might get the wrong idea.”

“He's serious about this. If I say no, I might never work as a knight again.”

“If you say no, you'll call his bluff. He doesn't want Garvey in charge of anything, either.”

“You don't know that.”

Aly arched an eyebrow. “Don't I?”

Kel threw up her hands. “I forgot. You know everything.”

“I have to. It's my job.”

“I'm surprised you didn't know what I'd decide as soon as you read the charter. The first time you kissed me, did you know how this would all end?”

“Unfortunately, no – I could have avoided wasting the past three years. But I hoped you'd stand up for yourself at least once.”

“What?”

“Even in New Hope, you're not going to be happy if we're apart. And I guess you're not going to be happy if you don't satisfy all that chivalry, either, so your only way out is to argue with the king.”

Kel gaped. “I can't-”

“I know.” Aly crossed her arms and jutted out her chin. “So I guess this is how it all ends.”

2.

Kel bowed to the king, and sat when he indicated the chair facing his desk.

“Have you considered our offer?”

“I have, sire.” Kel removed the charter from her belt-purse and laid the scroll on his desk.

“You have questions, perhaps?” King Jonathan was beginning to go gray in the beard and at the temples; concensus was that this made him no less dashing. He had begun cultivating a concerned, avuncular air that made Kel ill.

“There are some concerns I'd like to discuss.”

“Go ahead, then. We're listening.”

“I understand the need for stability of noble lineage in a new fief, especially a border fief made up primarily of commoners with no uniting heritage. I also agree with, and thank you for, the assessment that I would be an excellent choice as Baroness of New Hope.”

“Well!” The king beamed. “You'll accept the role?”

Kel spread her hands, palm down, on her thighs. Now or never. “No, sire, I won't.”

He blinked in surprise.

“You see, there are some conditions of the charter that I cannot meet.”

“Which ones, pray?”

“The charter specifically requires me to bear children. You also made it very clear that I would be expected to marry the man who would father said children. He would then be Baron of New Hope, and equally charged with the well-being of the fief. And meaning no disrespect, sire, I can't do any of this, because none of it would be in Tortall's best interest.”

The king's outward expression was boredom, but something in his eye made Kel sure she'd caught his interest.

When he said nothing, Kel took it as leave to continue her explanation. “For one thing, I've spoken with Lady Alanna and Lady Fianola. They each told me that after bearing their children, returning to full fitness for active duty as knight took two years of solid work – and they were both in their early twenties at the time. I believe, your majesty, that my value to the realm is greater as an active knight than it would be as the mother of an infant.

“Secondly, it's a common expectation for a baron to be the ultimate authority on the grounds of his barony, even if there is also a baroness. Though I have no doubt the noblemen you have suggested as potential suitors-” (here Kel was struck with a sudden urge to laugh, but she managed to push it down) “-for me are good men, that's not reason enough for the people of New Hope to have faith in them. Those folk have faith in me, and sending me to them under the jurisdiction of a baron is likely to put me in frequent conflict with my husband or with the people I'm sworn to protect. In the end, that won't help any of us.

“And third, if I may be so bold, you must know about my connection with Lady Alianne of Pirate's Swoop. You must also know about her unofficial role in Tortall's... communications network.” Kel gulped. There was really no going back now. “If I marry, obviously things between us will change completely. We've talked about it, and she is not happy with that possibility. And sire, I don't think it will benefit either of us – nor any other part of the realm – to unnecessarily upset a woman of her talents. To say nothing of how her mother might react.” Finished at last, Kel bowed slightly in her seat, and waited.

“Well.” The king picked up the scroll, rerolling it into a precise tube. He gazed into the middle distance, eyes blank, but his face was tense with what seemed like disappointment. “Shall we contact Runner's Spring, then?”

“I have another suggestion, if it please your majesty,” Kel said, with another bow. She thought it couldn't hurt to be too polite, just here.

Now his mouth twitched with annoyance. “Let's hear it.”

“Give the fief to Lady Alianne. She's noble as can be, and she already has heirs, though she's for all intents and purposes a widow. She won't live there all the time, of course, so I will – make me a steward or something, it doesn't matter – and I can take care of the fief. I know her; I'm sure she won't undermine my decisions about day-to-day matters, and I'm sure we can reach agreement on the big things. The people of New Hope trust me, I trust Aly, and you know you can trust us both. Meanwhile, that will get us both out of the public eye, somewhat, until this mess with the Marenite ambasssador blows over. I'm sure it will work, your majesty.”

King Jonathan stared at Kel for a full minute, and then he began to laugh.

When he got his breath back, he said, “Lady Kel, I just lost a bet with the queen – but it's worth it, just to hear your explanation.”

Kel blinked. “I'm sorry, sire?”

“I'll have a clerk draw up a new charter. Tell your Aly I'd like to speak to her, if you see her before she divines the truth out of thin air.”

3.

Kel was at her desk, so focused on a stack of paperwork that she didn't hear the whisper of the door opening. She wasn't aware that someone else had entered the room until arms came around her neck from behind.

“You have got to turn that desk around,” Aly said. “What if I was an assassin?”

“You'd never let that happen,” Kel answered. “There's no assassin who could get past your people.” Kel tilted her head to look at Aly. “And even if one did, I know a couple of things about defending myself.”

“Yes, but think of the mess you'd make if you had to fight for your life here.”

“You're teasing me. Does that mean things are better between us?”

Aly kissed Kel's cheek, and then moved to lean against the desk. “I'm not sure I want to be a baroness.”

“I argued with the king to make it happen.”

“So you did.” Aly grinned wickedly. “Maybe I'll have to argue with him, too.”

Kel's brows knit with worry. “About what?”

“I think it would be much better for New Hope to have two baronesses. Don't you?”

That was so completely opposite the king's original plan that Kel nearly laughed. Instead she reached up and took Aly's hands in both of hers. “I love you.”

Aly grinned. “I know.”


End file.
